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Shit, he’s so pretty, Katsuki thinks. He has these moments sometimes. It's kind of a problem.
He sees Todoroki doing something totally mundane—washing a dish or solving a maths problem or reaching for a glass—and hell, it makes him sick how fucking sappy it is, but he looks perfect. It’s the soap suds bubbling on his hands, and the way Katsuki wants to kiss each knuckle like some stupid, medieval knight. That makes Todoroki the princess, he guesses, if he's sticking with the fairy-tale theme, which—yeah, that suits him.
Maybe Katsuki's just hallucinating. Maybe he's losing his mind. He could be walking around with a tumour in his brain and not know it.
But he finds Todoroki in these moments, where he's just existing and breathing and being a person, and he can’t help staring, can’t keep himself from soaking in every detail, because he looks so flawlessly embedded in the physical world, as if he was built alongside the grass and the cabinets and the cotton fabric of his clothes. He’s pretty.
Sometimes he wonders if everyone else sees it, too.
That's not to say they're all blind. Todoroki's the beauty of U.A, and everyone's so well-aware of his good looks that it drives Katsuki insane. The past two Valentine's they've been here, Halfie's desk damn-near collapsed under the weight of all the cards and chocolates and ridiculous rose bouquets left to him by the student body. It's actually stupid; so it's not like Todoroki's appearance is a secret. Katsuki just ponders if they see him this way too—small, quiet, contained. Not dangerous, threatening, powerful—because God knows that he is those things, with his ice crackling, fire smouldering, muscles working, chest heaving in close combat. He is menacing, that’s just a fact, but is there anyone besides Katsuki that sees him in a different light?
Soft—rough edges retracted into skin, hidden away until the next fight. Does anyone else watch him move in the early mornings and picture him melting into dawn?
Katsuki fucking hopes not. He's never been good at sharing.
It’s yet another one of these moments now: Todoroki cross-legged on the floor of the common room, socked foot propped up on Katsuki’s ankle as he watches from the sofa, the former winning by a mile in the class's game of poker, chips replaced with small snacks. No one has shit on Todoroki, not with his unbreakable poker face.
He has a bowl of chocolates and gummies next to him, half-spilling onto the floor, face impassive, eyes cold. Not a damn emotion there. Somehow, despite that, Katsuki looks at him, slender fingers clutching cards, and all he can think is:
Shit, he’s so pretty, and he just can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away, should he miss a movement. The sun is setting outside, dusk sweeping the skyline. Everything is dusted in hues of pink and soft yellow, beams cracking the room into shards. Todoroki is caught in the middle of one, the two colours meeting halfway, melting on his face. Half an’ Half in every sense of the phrase. He looks like he drinks sunlight.
Katsuki could find a way to give him that, if Todoroki just let him. Katsuki would find a method to bottle up sunlight into little jars, fucking aerosolize it if Todoroki wanted that. Katsuki would find a way.
"Katsuki," Eijiro whispers as he nudges him with his elbow, startling Katsuki out of his daydreams, "you're staring."
"Shut it, Shitty Hair," he snaps back, hushed, and focuses on directing his gaze anywhere that isn't Todoroki, fighting the heat that threatens to rise on his face. Suddenly, the stains on the far wall seem infinitely entertaining. He sees Eijiro smirk. Prick.
Todoroki does—something. Katsuki doesn't actually know. He won't admit it, but he knows fuck-all about poker. He's completely lost.
It's okay, though. There are better things here to look at.
And so, the night goes on—Todoroki winning, everyone else complaining and admiring in turn, and Katsuki stewing in a lovesick, flushed, pining mess. Fucking feelings. Awful.
As expected, the class ends up falling asleep eventually, tangled together in one sprawling human lump across the common room. They’re comfortable like this now, common room sleepovers having become somewhat of a staple. Katsuki complains about it, obviously—he still has a reputation to preserve—but he’s learned to look forward to these nights as well, even if his back does always ache the day after. The smell of popcorn is a familiar one.
The room is silent save for even breathing, the rustling of blankets, and quiet snores. Eijiro is a dead weight leaning on him and Raccoon Eyes is flopped over his lap, arm intertwined with Uraraka’s. Sleepily, Katsuki’s eyes trail along the chain of entwined limbs keeping everyone connected even in their sleep—from Uraraka’s leg thrown over Tsu’s to Tsu’s hand around Jirou’s ankle who’s burrowed into Ponytail’s side who has her head nestled on Tokoyami’s shoulder whose arm is thrown over Kaminari and Shinsou, huddled together as if trying to preserve fucking body heat, to—
To Todoroki, who isn’t asleep. Who’s staring at the ceiling like he can see straight through it and up into the sky. Whose right side is painted so perfectly in moonlight that he looks straight out of a romantic play or a poem about fairies or some shit.
Katsuki wonders what he’s thinking about. He wonders that a lot. He likes to think that he knows Todoroki well by now, probably the most out of anyone except maybe a few others like Deku and Ponytail, but—he can never be quite sure. Todoroki’s like that. Impossible to predict. Always hiding something or other to drop on you when you least expect it, anything from batshit conspiracy theories that make Katsuki just fucking bluescreen to frankly fucking horrific childhood trauma. Katsuki wants to memorise his thought patterns. He knows that Todoroki has a hard time untangling them. Katsuki would like to be the one to help him.
“You know, Fuyumi gave me glow-in-the-dark stars once, when I was really little," Todoroki says out of nowhere, all quiet like he’s afraid one word too loud will break the entire night open.
Katsuki’s mouth goes dry. He knows that there’s more to this, but Todoroki looks over to him like he’s expecting an answer. Katsuki doesn’t have one. He’s almost scared to speak, lest he break this almost magical kind of haze that’s settled over them. He settles for a quiet prompt. “Yeah?”
Todoroki nods slightly, expression softened. “Yeah. She never told me where she found them. I never thought to ask. She just—after training one night, when Endeavour was more pissy than usual because of a villain fight that didn’t end as well as it could have. She finished bandaging up my burns and then pulled this little packet out of her pocket and said she thought I might like them. There weren’t many of them, but they were this kind of pastel green. Pretty colour.”
Ashido huffs quietly in her sleep and scrunches her nose up, so Katsuki lets his hand fall into her pink hair, a grounding pressure. “What’d you do with ‘em?”
Todoroki sighs, moving to rest his chin on the table. The slice of moonlight slants diagonally over his face, blue eye bright. “Well, I couldn’t let Endeavour find them, so I didn’t stick them up anywhere. I hid them in a loose floorboard underneath my bedside table. On the bad nights, when I was on my own, I’d pull them out and just hold them, watching them glow in my hands. I always felt better after that. My world seemed just a little bit bigger. Less lonely.” Todoroki pauses here, looking down at where he’s absentmindedly flipping over cards. Three of hearts. “Feel, really. Feel better.”
Something in Katsuki loosens at that. Feel. Present tense. He still has them. “Endeavour never got to ‘em, huh.”
“No, he didn’t,” Todoroki says with a small, satisfied smile. “They’re one of the only things I never let him ruin.”
He deserves more, Katsuki thinks. So, so much more. The entire fucking galaxy. Then he’d have stars.
“Do you have anything like that?” Todoroki asks next, flipping over another card. Six of spades.
“Like what?”
“Something important that doesn’t seem important. Something that you wouldn’t let anyone else ruin.”
Katsuki hesitates, just for a moment, before he says, “Yeah. I do. Uh—fuck. When I was little, my parents were working on this really important fuck-off dress for some actress or something, I don’t remember, and they were using these fake amethyst crystals to make, like, special effects or whatever. Except they kinda looked like explosions. So, once they finished the dress, they gave me a little bag of these fake crystals—'cause they said they reminded them of me. Not worth a fucking thing, but they looked real.”
Todoroki listens silently, head tilted like he does all the time without realising. As he speaks, Katsuki wonders if Todoroki knows he’s doing it. When Katsuki finishes, Todoroki asks, “Do you still have them?”
And Katsuki considers saying no for a second. Considers severing that little emotional connection that he’s still just slightly scared of showing.
But Todoroki still has his glow-in-the-dark stars, so instead Katsuki goes, “Yeah. Keep ‘em in my bedside table. They’re—”
The words get stuck a bit, like they’re catching on some invisible hook in his throat—but he’ll say anything for Todoroki. Anything at all. “They’re a reminder, I guess. Of my parents back home. Not that this place isn’t—home, but… You get it, Icyhot.”
And he knows that Todoroki does. It’s a little different for him, because—well, the Todoroki estate was never really home for him in the first place, but Katsuki knows that Fuyumi was. Home in a person, even if painful.
There’s a kind of.... not melancholy, exactly, in the air now. More nostalgia. Something like longing. Katsuki wants to bundle up the whole of space into a pretty package, all light and wonder and asteroids, just for him. Just so that he could have real stars (and he wonders if just maybe, Todoroki is thinking about purple and geodes and knock-off crystal shops. Just so that Katsuki could have more of his fake amethyst. Just a few more reminders that someone out there associates a real, material thing with him).
Time seems syrupy, the moonlight more like a strange shadow. Someone mumbles in their sleep and it’s warm. Cards are scattered on the table, more and more facing upwards as Todoroki flips them: two of clubs, eight of diamonds, king of spades. Carefully, Katsuki unlatches himself from the sofa, guiding Eijiro down onto the pillows while trying not to jostle him too much. He sits down on the other side of the table, across from Todoroki, and starts flipping cards of his own: queen of hearts, seven of diamonds, four of clubs.
“Have you stuck your stars up anywhere, or are you still hiding ‘em?” Katsuki asks over the sounds of the cards. Todoroki pauses, then flips over another as he whispers, “They’re underneath my pillow.”
“Why?”
"I think—I think I’m scared. Of somehow losing them. I don’t know how long I’ve had them for at this point. Just that it’s been a long time. I don’t want to lose that safety in case…”
“In case fuckin’ what?”
“I don’t know.” Todoroki looks up at him, and Katsuki can see it—that rippling fear. His heart hurts. God, he just wants to keep him safe. That’s all he’s wanted since fucking first year.
And as Katsuki thinks of safe, he also thinks of Todoroki latching onto him at crowded class outings, where everything was too loud and too big and Katsuki’s jacket sleeves were the only thing keeping him in his right mind. He thinks of how Todoroki doesn’t run from Katsuki’s explosions. How Todoroki has showed Katsuki the most vulnerable parts of himself when no one else could see. Those times he let Katsuki run fingertips over his scar without so much as a flinch. Stories of I never really got to see Natsuo growing up and Fuyumi had to grow up too fast and Endeavour calls me his masterpiece and I don’t remember much about Touya but I think I loved him and She called me unsightly.
And Katsuki thinks about how all of it means I feel safe with you. Safe, safe, safe.
Katsuki—god, he's an idiot. A complete and utter dumbass. Holy hell. His heart’s going to explode. It sounds too loud in the quiet. He wonders if Todoroki can hear it too.
“It’s alright,” Katsuki reassures, because he needs to. He needs Todoroki to know. “You’re safe here, Half an’ Half. I won’t let anyone get you, understand that? You can put your fuckin’ stars up.”
Todoroki, then, just nods like he’s known it all along and then his eyes flicker down and Katsuki leans over the table and kisses him. Todoroki tastes like popcorn. Katsuki is sure he does too. The kiss feels like everything and nothing and Todoroki’s lips are soft and Katsuki can’t think anything beyond You're safe, you’re safe, you’re safe with me, I promise. Todoroki lets out a soft whimper and when they pull away his breath hitches and Katsuki swears he is going to lose whatever’s left of his lovesick mind. God, this boy.
"We’re going upstairs right the fuck now," he orders, voice rough. "My room.”
“Yeah," Todoroki breathes, nodding. His cheeks are flushed. "Let’s go, come on.”
They stumble upstairs, leaving behind soft breaths and cards flipped up on the table and sleep-ridden limbs.
It's fulfilling in a different way than Katsuki ever imagined it. Skin on skin, and rumpled sheets and dawn with Shouto’s head resting on Katsuki’s shoulder, Katsuki’s arm draped over Shouto’s stomach, where Shouto seems to belong to the sunlight in the same way Katsuki belongs to sweat and salt—but the precise physicality isn't the important part. The important part is that they are safe. They are so, so in love and languid and nothing can hurt them. Not together. Not just yet.
(The next night, they stick glow-in-the-dark stars to Shouto’s wall next to his bed. Not all of them, but half. Half for the dorms and Katsuki and the family they found on their own, half left for Fuyumi and Natsuo and ghosts in the walls. The world is a little brighter this way.
On Shouto’s birthday, Katsuki brings Shouto a string of soft pink fairy lights. “They’re not glow-in-the-dark stars,” he says, “but I wanted you to have something from me. To remind you I'm there.”
On Katsuki’s birthday, Shouto brings him a little bag of fake citrine crystals. “It’s not amethyst,” he says, “but these remind me of you. I think they’re a really pretty colour. I like to think that you exist in my life in more ways than one.”
It becomes a thing. Their own little tradition. Their flat when they move in together has glow-in-the-dark stars on their bedroom ceiling and soft pink fairy lights in the living room and fake crystals on the shelves.
Dusk loves them like its own.)